The process of designing quality performance tasks and projects involves attending to three major elements: The design of the activity in which students will be engaged The standards or outcomes that are being addressed by the activity The traits or criteria used to assess the activity

1. Developing Performance
Assessments
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2. The process of designing quality
performance tasks and projects involves
attending to three major elements:
• The design of the activity in which students will
be engaged
• The standards or outcomes that are being
addressed by the activity
• The traits or criteria used to assess the activity
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3. Steps to take before beginning Performance
Assessment Tasks
• Establish the outcome(s) to be measured.
• Devise clear instruction to be provided to
students.
• Determine conditions for assessment
(e.g., setting, amount of time needed, amount
of intervention).
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4. • Gather all the equipment or resource materials
that may be used.
• Establish whether the student will have any
choices in how to respond (e.g., oral
responses).
• Determine whether the student will require
accommodations or modifications.
• Develop the scoring criteria to be used.
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5. Standards or Outcomes
• Projects or performance tasks should be
carefully aligned with the content standards or
predetermined learner outcomes.
• A careful task analysis will determine if the task
contains content sufficient to warrant the time
and effort that will be expended.
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6. Criteria for Performance-Based
Assessment
• Consequences
- Does using an assessment lead to
intend consequences, or does it
produce unintended
consequences, such as teaching to
the test?
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7. • Fairness
- Does the assessment enable students
from all cultural backgrounds to
demonstrate their skills?
• Transfer and generalizabiliy
- Do the results generalize to other
problems and situations?
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8. • Cognitive complexity
- Does the assessment adequately
assess higher levels of thinking and
understanding?
• Content quality
- Are the tasks worth the time and effort
of students and raters?
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9. • Content coverage
- Does the assessment enable
adequate content coverage?
• Meaningfulness
- Are the assessment tasks meaningful
to students, and do they motivate
them to perform their best?
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10. • Cost and efficiency
- Has attention been given to the
efficiency of data collection designs
and scoring procedures?
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11. • Create a task that will allow the students to
demonstrate their
knowledge, reasoning, skills, and/or attitudes.
• These tasks should be authentic (real-
world), feasible (in time, space, and cost), fair
(not biased based on
gender, race, etc.), flexible (allow multiple
outcomes), and observable.
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12. • For example, the performance task may
be that students conduct a science
experiment, create a clay sculpture, or
write a position paper that advocates a
change in the school dress code.
• After the task is defined, a rubric can be
developed to assess the task.
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